Monthly Archives: September 2006

The 31 day $100 challenge

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Tomorrow is October 1st, and I have a challenge for the next 31 days.  I will try to earn at least $100 in ad revenue from this blog in the next 31 days.  At $3/1000 page views, that will mean that I need 1000+ hits a day.  I have only been able to get around 400 hits on any one day with the average being around 15 hits a day.  That one day I got 400 hits was from posting an article about Google and Microsoft on Digg.com.  This is going to be a challenge, but I have a plan.

1) Create a list of 31 topics to write about over the next 31 days. 

2) Begin writing all 31 articles today.

3) Really polish the articles as best I can.  Go through at least 3 edit cycles.  Each article will be between 500-1500 words.  They will be about topics that should spur a lot of interest.

4) Publish one article per day.  Put links on digg.com, reddit.com, slashdot.org, any relavent newsgroups, one web groups, and any other sites we can find.

5) Try to write at least 5 other pieces a day about various subjects.

So, let’s see if we can do it.  $100 in ad revenue in 31 days.  (We will not be including donations or affiliate revenue.  Only Google Adsense will count.)

How to find leaks on your board

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Recently, the news has been filled with reports about a particular Fortune 100 company, and how it addressed leaks from the board of directors.  These reports have triggered Congressional hearings and much public debate and comment.  The focus so far has been on where the investigation went wrong.  However, I think an equally critical issue to address is how to address leaks from a company’s board.  Board leaks about pre-announced events such as acquisitions, mergers, spin-offs, and hiring/firing of executives could allow for some to benefit financially from this privileged information.  If the chairman of the board suspected leaks and did nothing to plug them, would the chairman be complicit in insider trading?
Here are some ideas on how to deal with leaks.
1) Lecture the board – Ask each person 1 on 1 if he or she is leaking the information.  Remind each one individually of his/her responsibility to the company regarding this privileged information.  This approach was tried in the latest scandal.  It neither revealed the leaker nor stopped the leaking.
2) Lecture the media – Ask the reporter/media outlet to reveal the leaker.  Remind them of the harm it does to the company/markets to have insider information leaked.  Can the media be held accountable for revealing privileged information?  I do not think so.  Although this approach was not tired, it would probably not work.  It would also alert the media to the fact there are leaks on the board which is something the company wants to keep secret.
3) Crime Stoppers approach – Offer a monetary reward leading to information regarding leaking from board members.  This could entice people associated with the leaker, the reporter, or the media outlet to reveal the leaker.  It has the downside of alerting people to the fact that there is leaking on the board.  However, if it was a standing policy this could be avoided.  Perhaps it should be administered by an outside group?
4) Sequester the board – Anytime that the board is aware of pre-announced information, keep them isolated and away from any contacts.  Take them to a remote area and keep them off the communications network.   This has many obvious drawbacks.  The board will probably always have something that should not be shared, so they may have to stay out of touch indefinitely.  Also, you want your board members to have as much information as possible to make the best possible decisions, so this could be undesirable.  It would be very difficult to enforce, people that want to connect find ways.
5) Board members agree to be investigated – What if we required access to phone records, permission to be spied on, access to emails, etc. as part of being a board member?  As a board member, there would be the expectation that the company would be following you and observing you.  The downside with this approach is that people would not sign up to be board members.  Also, it probably would not work.  Most spying works because the target is unaware of it.  If people felt they were being watched, they would find ways to communicate undetected.  Plus, if board members submit to this, how long will it be before they expect all the employees to submit to it as well?  This would definitely put us on the road to a Fahrenheit 451 type world.
6) Routinely give people on the boards “tracers” – Tracers in this case would be “sensitive” information that would only be given to one board member at a time.  If the information got out, then you found your leak.  This would not work as well, because if it was routine, then the board would know about it.  They would also suspect this information as being a tracer.  They only have to ask others if they had heard about it.  Plus, you need trust between your board members.
Can you think of any other ways?  If so, please leave them in the comments section. 

A note about traffic and revenue

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Steve Pavlina says that he earns $300/day from his site.  Last month I got about 1000 hits and about $3 in ad revenue.  So to get $300/day would mean 100,000 hits per day.  This is an unbelievable increase from the current traffic, but I do not think it is impossible.

There are several ways to get there.  First off, better content and more of it will allow me to get more hits through searches like Google (60% of current traffic).  Second, some well written, relavent articles with posts from Digg.com (9% of current traffic), Reddit.com, and Slashdot could cause traffic to ballon.  I posted a simple article yesterday about a tutoring service in India.  It was a short and poorly written article.  The headline and description on Digg.com and Reddit.com was not all that good.  Yet, that was an instant 100+ hits.  Third, if I could develop focus areas with interested people around those areas that visited regularily (12% of traffic, mostly me, I think) could really increase the traffic.  There are several blogs that I visit almost daily such as Thomas P.M. Barnett’s blog which is focused on geo-politices/economics/military and Engadget which is focused on all the latest gadets.

There are several focus areas that I would be interested in including “learning Hindi”, economics, and programming.  I might need to create several subsites focused around these areas.  Learning Hindi is focused enough.  Economics is a little too large.  I need to narrow the focus on a particular area of economics such as development economcis or labor economics or perhaps a region such as Texas or India.  Programming is also broad, but I think I could focus that on productivity plugin and tools.  How to do things quicker in Outlook, Visio, etc.

These are just some ideas.  I am still searching for a $300/day plan that I can commit to and implement.  If you have some ideas or suggestions, please leave them in the comments below.

Three Microsoft Outlook plugin ideas

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Microsoft Outlook is a very nice tool.  It has your email, contacts, calendar, and even a todo list all in one place.  You can create rules to sort your email, and it has a built in junk email filter that is pretty good.  However, there are lots of time saving features that have yet to be implemented.

Microsoft can not add every single feature that users think of.  But outside developers can create Outlook plugins that extend the functionality of Outlook.  Here are three plugins that would save me some time.

1) Why did I get this email?  Some emails I get have a “TO” and “CC” list that contains dozens of people.  Many of these are lists, that then contain lists.  This plugin would look at that list for any references to you.  Then it would look a the members of all the global lists.  Then it would look through any lists contained in lists.  It would then show which ways the email was sent to you.  So if list A was on the TO line, and list A contained list B which contained your address, it would say “TO: -> List A -> List B -> You”.  As a bonus, it would have a button that when pressed would generate an email to the list B owner (or whatever list you were on) asking to be removed from the list.

2) Who did I send this to? There are lots of emails and documents that I need to forward.  Sometime I lose track.  This plug in would keep track of which people a particular document/email was forwarded to.  It would give me a list of documents and the people that I sent it to and when.

3) How are we connected? In the Global Address List (GAL) there is information about who reports to whom, who belongs to what mailing lists, where people are located.  This plugin would allow for you to enter two people from the GAL, it would then show you what chain of managers connected them.  It would also show any shared mailing lists, or if there location was similar.  As a bonus, you could click a button on any entry in the GAL to display how the selected person is related to you, or select multiple people and see how they are related to each other.  This feature would be enabled in the email message view as well for people on the “From”, “TO”, and “CC” lines.  It should also be possible to create rules using this information.  For example, any email coming from a direct report of person A should be placed in folder A.

If you are an Outlook user and you know about a plugin like this, please leave informaton about it in a comment below.  If you are an Outlook plugin developer and would consider implementing any of these, please let me know that as well.

Typing in Devenagari/Hindi on Windows

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In order to type in Hindi, you need to follow these steps:

1) Download and install Hindi LIP (Language Interface Pack) for the version of Windows that you are running from bhashaindia.com/Downloadsv2/Category.aspx?ID=2

2) Go to the Control Panel

3) Open The “Regional and Language Options” applet

4) Click the “Languages” tab

5) Click “Details”

6) Ensure that you have “Hindi” in the list.  Otherwise click “Add” and find it in the popup list.

7) Click on the “Language Bar” button. Check the following options and hit “OK”: “Show the Language bar on the desktop”, “Show additional Language bar icons in the taskbar”, “Show text labels on the Language bar”.

8) Click “Key Settings”

9) Select “Switch to English” and click “Change Key Sequence”.

10) Check “Enable Key Sequence”, “left Alt”, and “1” for Key and click “OK”

11) Select “Switch to Hindi” and click “Change Key Sequence”.

12) Check “Enable Key Sequence”, “left Alt”, and “2” for Key and click “OK”

13) Click “OK” on all the opened windows.  You will be prompted to reboot.

Now you will have a language bar that will allow for you to switch between the English and Hindi keyboards.  You will also be able to switch to English by pressing “Left Alt” + “Shift” + 1 and to Hindi by pressing “Left Alt” + “Shift” + 2.  This will allow for you to quickly switch between the two scripts which will be key when making studying material, doing translations, and creating Hindi exercises.

 Hindi Keyboard Stickers:

www.latkey.com/keyboard_stickers.asp?SubCat=25

www.bhashaindia.com/Developers/IndianLang/Typingdnagari/dnpages.aspx?pl=1

You should save the keyboard layout some place easy to refer to for the Hindi script.  Also, you might want to print it out.  You can find it on IBM’s site at: Keyboard Layout

www.microsoft.com/globaldev/keyboards/kbdinhin.htm

emandi.mla.iitk.ac.in/keyboard/index.htm

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Globalization, the Internet, and Tutoring – Unlimited tutoring for $49/month – one day special

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Yahoo reports that TutorVista offers online, personal, tutoring for pretty much any subject for $99/month, unlimited.  The tutoring is provided via Skype, Yahoo Messenger with Voice or Google Talk.

According to Yahoo, the tutors are located in India.  However, all tutors are required to have a Masters degree in their subject or have a B.S. in education and another subject.  Tutors all are required to speak very good English.

 Today they are having a one day special.  Sign up now and get unlimited tutoring for $49/month.

TutorVista is not the only online tutoring service, but I think it has the best price.  You can check out these two for comparison.

e-Tutor.com – Online tutoring, learning, and homeschooling resources.

Tutor.com

Making money from your blog

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Another great article from Steve Pavlina that I just found, How to Make Money From Your Blog.  It has several ideas for generating traffic and generating money.  One is called a blog carnival.  I had to do a search to see what this was.

About.com says:

A blog carnival is a regular “themed” posting that is hosted by various bloggers in participating weblogs. Usually, the frequency of postings in blog carnivals is once a week.

Here is a list of some blog carnivals that you could consider participating in:

weblogs.about.com/od/blogcarnivalsindex/index.htm

The Carnival of the Capitalists

It covers a lot of other details and information including the fact that 99% of blogs that try to make money do not do so.

 Some other pages you should look at from Steve Pavlina’s site:

How to Build a High-Traffic Web Site (or Blog)

 

Successfully starting a small business

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Steve Pavlina has a post 10 Stupid Mitakes Made by the Newly Self-Employed that lists several pitfalls that you should avoid when starting your single person business.  The article is worth reading, but I will summarize it here.

1) Be yourself – don’t try to appear to be a big business when you are just you.  Don’t try to give up being you.  Don’t try to be “business like” and leave your personality behind.  Successful business is built on successful relationships.  This means being open and honest about who you are, what you can do.  It also means dealing with people that are willing to accept you.

2) Spend money correctly -  Don’t buy fancy stuff;  Don’t over invest.  But at the same time don’t be afraid to spend money on things that will improve efficency.

3) Actually create value – Make sure that you are actually offering a product or service that is worth something, that actually contributes.  If you are not offering value, then you will not, and should not be in business for long.

4) Don’t accept or chase every deal – Some customers and deals are not worth it.  Be sure it is worth the time and effort to get that customer or maintain a business relationship.  You might be squandering the resources, time, and energy that you need for the “gold deal”

 

 

Successfully starting a small business

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Steve Pavlina has a post 10 Stupid Mitakes Made by the Newly Self-Employed that lists several pitfalls that you should avoid when starting your single person business.  The article is worth reading, but I will summarize it here.

1) Be yourself – don’t try to appear to be a big business when you are just you.  Don’t try to give up being you.  Don’t try to be “business like” and leave your personality behind.  Successful business is built on successful relationships.  This means being open and honest about who you are, what you can do.  It also means dealing with people that are willing to accept you.

2) Spend money correctly -  Don’t buy fancy stuff;  Don’t over invest.  But at the same time don’t be afraid to spend money on things that will improve efficency.

3) Actually create value – Make sure that you are actually offering a product or service that is worth something, that actually contributes.  If you are not offering value, then you will not, and should not be in business for long.

4) Don’t accept or chase every deal – Some customers and deals are not worth it.  Be sure it is worth the time and effort to get that customer or maintain a business relationship.  You might be squandering the resources, time, and energy that you need for the “gold deal”

 

 

My dumb computer

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It is 2006, and I should have a computer that I can talk to.  “Computer, what is my schedule for today?”.  “Computer, are their any birthday’s that are coming up?  Can you recommend some gifts?  Ok, buy those gifts?” 

 Why can’t we just tell computers what we want?  Ask a computer scientist this, an you will begin a conversation about how voices and speech patterns are different.  Every person pronounces even the simipliest phrases in very different ways in terms of pitch, intonation, timing, accent, and the like.  I understand all that, and I could do without actually speaking to the computer.  I would be happy just IMing the computer to get the information I need. 

 Indeed, there is a program that is like this called SmarterChild. However, this program does not take into account all the information that a computer should know.  It is a IM interface to online information and information that you choose to share with it.  But everyday we get emails, browse webpages, type IM messages, read news groups, read/write documents, and many other things online.  Yet even after years of passing these messages through the computer, it is no smarter and can not help me any more than the day I got it.  The computer is not expected to learn, but the computer user is.  The computer user is supposed to create rules to sort and mark emails.  The computer user is to bookmark pages of interests.  The computer user is supposed to keep track of what and where and from whom information comes, and keep track of what is sent out.

Why can’t the computer actually look at all these documents and start building up a knowledge base that could actually help me?  Why can’t it detect the relationship between myself and others by the information that I send and receive, the sites I view, the people I chat with?

I think this is a area where there is much “low hanging fruit” for the computer industry.  Can you imagine a computer that actually “learned” from you interacting with it?  Why we can’t even get a computer that can manage its own filesystem, so maybe I dream too much?